Firearms, such as rifles and/or shotguns, can include an upper receiver, a hand guard generally surrounding the barrel and being attached to the upper receiver, and an optics rail extending along the top of the upper receiver and/or the hand guard. In recent years, especially with regard to tactical firearms for military or law enforcement use, unitary or monolithic upper receivers with an integral hand guard have been developed, including monolithic upper receivers having a mil-std rail formed or mounted therealong. These rails enable mounting of optics such as a scope, and/or other devices therealong. Additional peripheral devices or accessories also can be mounted on the hand guard for use with the firearm. Some of the most commonly used peripheral devices, such as lights, laser arming devices, etc., can include wires or cables for power transmission, control signals, and/or communication signals. These cables can, however, become snagged or otherwise interfere with operation of the firearm and/or peripheral devices, especially when passing a cable from one side of the hand guard to the other for communication between two devices.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for an upper receiver and hand guard with cable routing features that addresses the foregoing and other related and unrelated problems in the art.